


Velveteen

by arcaneScribbler



Series: Player Count 8 + 2 [9]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Bonnie is mute, Crockerbert family reunion, Everyone lives, Gen, Illustrated, Post-Sburb, Seb and Bonnie are legally deaf, bunny children, post-victory, robot-human hybrids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3748084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcaneScribbler/pseuds/arcaneScribbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The date (relative to this new universe, at least) is April 13th, 2011, and the Players of a certain Game have just arrived.</p><p>Your (newest) name is BONNIE and you hope this can be home.<br/>Your name is JOHN EGBERT and you were not expecting this.</p><p>Your (current) name is LIL SEBASTIAN and you are excited to see Janeyjanejane again.<br/>Your name is JANE CROCKER and you are not actually surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Side A: Egbert.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is late! I meant to post it yesterday, but wasn't finished yet... And I only have the first half done so far, so I'm going to post it as two chapters. Happy Belated Birthday, John Egbert and Jane Crocker!

Your name is... well, to be honest, you’ve had a lot of names. The nicknames you were given on set ranged from FLOP to RAGGEDY to BUNNY to FRANK DID YOU MISPLACE THE PROP _AGAIN?_ , just to name a few. The boy with shades who bought you afterwards simply dubbed you THE BEST GIFT EVER. He sent you to a bucktoothed boy, who passed you along to a girl who enjoys knitting (the name she called you is a secret), then again to a girl with big glasses who shuttled you back and forth between another bucktoothed boy who called you TERRY KAISER. Finally, you went back to the first bucktoothed boy, and he called you LIV TYLER. (Then the Green Sun was born (and you burned up with it), and they scratched the disc, and another you got picked up by a different boy in shades and collected names like HUGGY BEAR and LIL SEBASTIAN instead.)

Long story short, nowadays you just go by BONNIE. (You don’t have a middle, or a last. Not yet. You’re pretty sure you need to be given those.) You quite like this name! You picked it yourself! It was easy. You’re not sure exactly _how_ you know letters, but you do know them, and though your hands (with fingers that bend and curl instead of floppy paws or metal) don’t know a pencil very well, you can type okay, and your metal-ears are easy to point to anyway. (The not-metal ones are little and curved and don’t work very well on their own. You think they’re kind of cute!)

Oh, oh, and you don’t live in a box now. The bucktoothed boy’s Dad ( _“Hello. My name is Paul. Are you alright? Can you speak?”_ ) tried to offer you one of the rooms you don’t remember (it has a bed just your size, and a box with a postage stamp sitting on a little nightstand, and big big pillows you can build into your very own big box, and you know it’s just for you, but...), but you want to wait. Just in case. The bucktoothed boy isn’t back yet. He’s going to be, though. Soon. Very soon! On his birthday! Miss Nanna ( _JaneyJane, but that name’s for the other you_ ) promised you could help her decorate the cookies.

(Mister Hat (whose name is Paul) and Nanna have been very nice to you, even though you’re very shy. You’re a _tiiiiiiny_ bit worried you’ll have to leave once bucktoothed boy comes home, but... But that’s a silly worry, right? You know you’re an old, old bunny, and the old you wasn’t very pretty, but the bucktoothed boy was happy to have you, wasn’t he? It’s still his decision, though. You’re not sure how to explain that to them, but... it just _is._ You’re still a bunny, even though so much has changed. If he wants you to go, you’ll go. You’re just... not sure where, yet.)

=====> [Welcome Party: Prepare.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2176152/chapters/4761690)

You are in the middle of applying purple frosting to a cookie with great care when the bucktoothed boy (when everyone) arrives. You’re not quite sure how you know. You just... _know._

(Oh no oh no you’re nervous why are you nervous oh no oh no oh no)

=====> Bonnie: Be someone else. 

Your name is JOHN EGBERT and you have just been beaned in the face with a cake. By your dad. Who is dead. Err, was dead. (Also, Nanna is here. And she’s alive, too. And not a pranking-prone harlequin ghost sprite.)

You... think you might need a minute.

=====> John: Spend some time with your family. 

You do just that.

Later, you find yourself in the kitchen while Dad is away getting groceries and Nanna is washing your clothes (she said nothing about the bloodstains, just winked at you and chuckled), staring at a nearly-full plate of cookies carefully decorated in frosting that’s a strangely familiar shade of purple. There’s another cookie on the counter, half-finished, with a hastily-dropped tube of frosting left behind. Your dad does not usually leave this kind of mess, and you doubt Nanna would, either. (Your prankster's sense is tingling.)

=====> John: Investigate. 

Is it you, or is your house bigger than you remember? Huh. Weird...

...Aha!

"HMM, I wonder why my door is open a bit! Oh well, maybe Dad just wanted to air the room out," you say loudly. 

Hehehehehe! You're not falling for it this time!

You quickly push open your bedroom door and dodge out of the way of... huh. No bucket. Then why was the door-...

=====>

"..."

There is a girl sitting on your bed. She's... familiar, sort of? You can't quite place it. (Why is she holding a green-wrapped cardboard box? Is that the box Jade sent you on your birthday when all this started? Why does she look so nervous? Well, aside from having snuck into your room, you mean...)

If this is a joke, you're not sure what the punchline could be.

"Umm, hello?"

No response. She isn’t looking your way. (Is she ignoring you, or does she not know you’re here? You weren’t exactly being quiet...)

“Excuse me?” you try again, louder.

Nope. Still nothing. (Is she deaf? Why would a deaf girl be in your room?)

=====> John: Approach. 

Getting a bit closer won’t hurt, right? (Not an enemy, not a threat, just a little girl who is for some reason in your room with no one the wiser. (Maybe you should ask Nanna? Nah, not yet.))

The girl looks up after you’ve only taken a few steps forward and jolts, dropping the box onto the floor and looking really frantic, all without saying anything.

(You have no clue what to make of this situation.)

“Are you okay?”

She makes a frustrated-looking face (she’s really cute, in that cute little kid way, even though she’s still a stranger who’s in your bedroom for some reason) and flails her hands around a bit. You wonder what she’s doing?

=====> Girl: Retrieve ~~arms~~ ears from Sylladex.

*-ify!*

It finally clicks once the girl puts on a pair of headphones that look like bunny ears and flicks them on. The rabbity bits tilt towards you almost immediately. Make that robo-bunny ears.

(Is this girl really your bunny from back then...? How? Why? SBURB is weird.)

“...Liv?”

Nod-nod followed by a flustered head-shake. (Umm, which is it, then?)

She hops down off the bed really suddenly (you very nearly deploy your hammer) and scoops up the green box, pulling out a sheet of printer paper and shoving it into your hands before absconding.

(Light, sprinting footsteps, and a door creaking open and shut elsewhere in the house.)

=====> John: Examine paper. 

Happy Birthday, John!  
  
I hope you like the cookies! And, umm, sorry I look so different. I’m your bunny. Unless you don’t want me to be anymore, I mean! I changed a lot and I’m not small enough to carry and cuddle anymore, so if you don’t want me, that’s fine. I can leave. I’m sure I can find somewhere to go... But I’m glad I’ll get to see you again, even if it’s only once.  
  
=:)  
  
Sincerely, Bonnie.


	2. Side B: Crocker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **EDIT 03/28/2017:** Small edit to clarify something.

In a space between spaces, a collection of objects appear: a customized miniature katana (no less deadly than the full-size), a pair of small, pointy shades with a crack in one lens, and a battered, worn robotic rabbit, rusted and ravaged by time.

It wavers suddenly, like a glitched image on a computer screen, revealing faint patches of gunmetal gray, a lingering scrap of faded blue paint, and something beneath— no, _inside_ — an old stuffed bunny.

Steel and fabric separate, pulled apart and reassembled separately via a sorting algorithm. Once the pair lie side by side in twin limp poses of stalled machinery and ancient plush, the translation protocols are free to work on their designated target.

=====> Lil Sebastian: Exit. 

=====>

Your name is PHILIP CROCKER and you are quite concerned by this development.

(Somehow, you know exactly who this little boy is.)

But you are a father, and so you do what any good father would do: you captchalogue his things, scoop him up (he’s breathing, thank heavens), and carry him and the stuffed rabbit off for a warm bath. Asleep or not, they are both absolutely _filthy!_ (Besides, it will be much easier to determine whether or not the boy is injured once you wash off the dirt and grime.)

=====>

Oh dear. Most of this is _rust_. You’d best get him clean straight away; if he’s cut anywhere he could easily get tetanus like this!

=====>

The boy sleeps straight through his bath, though he does mumble and shift slightly a few times, and when you leave momentarily to fetch a towel, you return to find he’s slipped down into the water until he’s fully submerged, which alarms you. (When you notice the air bubble, you go from alarmed to concerned and puzzled. (Is he seeking warmth? It’s possible that he could have caught a chill over the course of whatever it is that... changed him. You should make sure to bundle him up tightly in blankets, perhaps even light up the fireplace.))

=====>

The next morning, you are awakened by a loud crash downstairs and hurry to investigate. (A burglar, or your guest?) In the living room, you find a disoriented young man blinking up at you with mismatched eyes from the floor in front of the couch, half-tangled in blankets and mumbling a series of hoarse nonsense syllables.

(You get the feeling this is going to be quite the eventful day.)

=====> Crockerdad: Be someone else. 

Your name is LIL SEBASTIAN, SEB for short (though before that you were HUGGY BEAR, and before that, you were... well... it’s complicated), several days later, and you cannot for the life of you stop fidgeting. You can’t help it! You’re excited! Janeyjane is going to be here soon! You made sure your talker was on nice and securely just in case your antsiness gets the best of you and you break stuff, because you don’t want to break it, and you promised Janeyjane’s DAD you’d keep your sword in your Specibus, but you’re leaving your ears on no matter what happens because not being able to hear is bad. (Besides, your ears have wireless, and you’re hoping that once Janeyjane comes back that maybe, just maybe you’ll finally get a transmission from one of the others- the missing ones, not Square and Saw, they're fine- or even your CREATOR. You miss them...)

Right now you’re washing your plate after pancakes (calm down Seb don’t fling it don’t smash it don’t slice it even a little gentle careful control your strength), and after that you think you’ll go try to teach BURROW a bit about computers. (BURROW was SAFE PLACE, STANDBY PLACE, and he still feels the same even though you don’t use STANDBY anymore and he’s not furniture either, so logically if you go to where he is you won’t be as fidgety! ...You think.)

=====>

...!!

(You know it you know it you just _know_ it.)

She’s here she’s here Janeyjane is here!!!

=====> Seb: Be the other girl. 

Your name is JANE CROCKER and you have just been tackled by an overexcited bunny-boy. (A whipped cream pie sails over both of your heads as you fall down with a blond-haired head adorned with a headset complete with twitching mechanical ears pressed against your chest with what you hope is childish innocence and rapid disjointed chatter pours from the speaker at Lil Sebastian’s neck. Your father is chuckling merrily, as is... Poppop? Oh, oh wow, that’s really...)

...In all honesty, you’ve been half-expecting something like this to occur ever since the little bunny-bot went missing again while you were still in the Medium, so you aren’t all that surprised by him being here, though you certainly didn’t expect him to have become human. (Does that mean that all of Dirk’s more spirited contraptions have gone through similar transformations? Hmm. You guess you will soon find out either way.)


End file.
